John Winthrop, Jr., who was to be the governor of the settlement,
had sent a ship in November with carpenters and other workmen to
take possession of the place and to begin building, but when
Lieutenant Gardiner arrived at the mouth of the Connecticut in
March, he found that not much had been done--only a few trees cut
down and a few huts put up. He set to work at once and built a
fort "of a kind of timber called 'a read oack,'" and across the
neck of land behind the fort he built a "palisade of whole trees
set in the ground."

The fort was on a point of land running out into the river just
above its mouth. There were salt marshes around it, and on three
sides it was protected by water. Dutch sailors had first
discovered this place and called it "Kievet's Hook" from the cry
of the birds (pee-wees) whom they heard there. The Dutch
themselves intended to establish a trading-post here, but they
were driven away by the arrival of the English.

The "Lords and Gentlemen" in England had promised to send
Lieutenant Gardiner "three hundred able men" that spring, to help
him; "two hundred to attend fortification, fifty to till the
ground, and fifty to build houses," but they did not come and he
was greatly disappointed. George Fenwick, acting as agent of the
company, however, arrived to see how matters were progressing at
Saybrook. Fenwick was the only one of the Puritan "gentlemen" who
ever came to New England; for conditions were rapidly changing in
English politics, and their party was soon engaged in a struggle
with the Government that kept all its prominent leaders at home.
But although Lion Gardiner was left without enough workmen and